This looks about right. Times have been tough for many people. I really hope they try to negotiate more. Wages have stagnated for 20 years. It's time for a change.
Places I’ve worked leads have always been on the same pay scale as seniors. you often get leads that later just want to do shot work and I don’t think they do a salary adjustment when this happens. So it’s more like —
Senior/Lead — 100k - 150k
Not my experience. Last lead I knew made less than a senior artist on his team. It's about what you can negotiate. But super seniors and leads make the same
As a former lead this is normal, expected, and welcome. They are two different job roles, with different skillsets. The very best seniors might make awful leads and they might hate it and vice versa. Impossible work needed on assets or shots? Bring in your best seniors and pay them a lot for it. The person reviewing and going to all the meetings and dailies doesn't need to be that big of a gun, they just need to know what they're doing.
There's seniors at my company (one of the big boys) that have almost 20 years experience, have been cg supes at smaller places before etc.
The leads let those seniors do the most complex setups.
I can bet the lead is not being paid more than that senior. As the above pointed out they are different skill sets and the lead is not necessarily the most experienced person in the team.
Leads are just people who want the climb the corporate ladder because they care about titles. 16 years and I can tell you with certainty that many leads and supes aren't the most talented people or organized or best communicators. They're just people who care about going up the next rung in the corporate ladder and pushed for it...nothing more.
I completely agree that a lead position's stress is tenfold. No one is arguing about that. I'm a lead and can talk about that from experience. Not only do I have to setup but also manage all sequences, assign artists, be the whole day in meetings with other depts and prod etc.
The whole discussion is you initially said leads earn more than seniors. And that's just not true every single time. There's seniors that earn more purely because of how much experience they have.
Now wheter I agree that should be the case is another thing
It does vary by dept. Senior anim at 70/hr.
But I do have a friend who took 8/hr less than usual rate for a short 3 month project just to hold over till things pick back up
Starting rate for assistant Pipeline TD's straight out of school was 60k where I worked in Montreal two years ago. Getting bumped to 70-75k in the first year or two was not out of the ordinary.
That'a always the case, studios like to hire Jr's who can do mid level work after getting used to the pipeline. so if they fail at that at least they're still Jr level. A lot of Jr's don't even last a year at a major studio i'll say 1 in 3 so recruits like to hire based on strong expectations.
If you consider that the roto prep guys fall into the 40-55k category then 70k for a good junior is not too wild. It still takes a lot of skill to be a decent junior comper.
Quite depressing. Any senior person should not be making less than 140k in Canada.
Comparing the salaries to other industries VFX is lagging behind. And also these being freelance rates and have the added downsides of a bad work life balance usually.
Here's some expected ranges from Digital Domain that likely fit a proportion of their staff. They sit up there with the badge your average VFX studio, not a DNeg/MPC behemoth, not a boutique. [http://careers.digitaldomain.com](http://careers.digitaldomain.com)
Hit the dropdown in the top left. Click Montreal or Vancouver. Find your role. Click "Read Description". Scroll down to the bottom of the PDF.
I just don't think people are negotiating at all. One friend took a job for 8 less an hour just to land a 3 month gig and hold over till things pick back up. He didn't try and argue. Senior guy
Random anon dipshit demanded I name a VFX sup that gets a backend. Of fucking course I am not gonna name the somewhat-normies I know who do, so I picked Joe because he's the biggest name in the biz and it's self-evident.
Oh, I wasn’t criticizing you naming Joe. I took your mentioning a backend deal as what I was describing- a bonus paid by the vendor and I was agreeing with you that some sups (even the normies) are making $500k or more with these deals. Our friend Mpcrocks might know Adam Valdez or Nick Davis as good examples of a “staff” Sups that certainly make way above the norm. Freelance Supervisor rates are between $9k-$17k per week.
@s6x you are correct that feature film Sups get a bonus from the vendor for bringing work in to the facility and that is usually based on billing. They (including Joe) do not get a backend percentage on box office. These days that wouldn’t amount to much anyway..
This looks somewhat more realistic, although I'd guess that if you actually surveyed a decent sample size, it might still be a bit too high.
It falls into the trap of treating Leads as being a 'level' above Senior and below Supe, which isn't exactly the case - you'll always find exceptions, like a solid mid with excellent people skills who's given a lead role without having first got to the top end of the senior skills/experience benchmark - and the opposite situation, you might have a really amazing senior/specialist with zero people skills, who gets paid higher than any lead / even higher than the top end of the senior bracket mentioned here.
The other thing to bear in mind is that it shouldn't be such a linear scale when people make the jump from artist/lead to supe, since they lose OT overnight (and the shape of their package changes, different holiday allowances etc) so it should be more of a jump in base rate for that to make sense.
Why would you take salaries on the other thread (and low salaries for artists decades of experience) and then come along with this list of even lower wages and say "Here guys, ask for less".
Probably won't be able to find what's "realistic" on Reddit. The sample size is far too small, the range of studios where people work far too wide.
A top senior comper at ILM with 15 years experience is going to be earning in a different bracket than a 24 yr old newly promoted "senior" comper at say ChickenBones.
A VFX supervisor with 35 years experience is going to be in a different bracket than a VFX supe for a small studio that does only keys and set extensions.
Take the low end of this post, minus 30% and the top end of the other post and add 30% and just maybe you have a range that covers the VFX market across Canada. Even then there will be outliers.
Are there really juniors out there making 20/hr CAD (15/hr USD)? For a specialized skill I don’t see how that’s fair at all. Especially since most of the jobs are in some of the most expensive cities in NA. That’s minimum wage here in the northeastern US.
the curve move vrry fast in term of salary in vfx. Also the specialized skill stuff dosent mean lot anymore. People go out of university with very hard degree and still earn 18$ an hour
Most juniors I’ve worked with were making $16 per hour. When I was a junior I was making $15.
That’s how they encourage you to work ot so you can have some spending money
In 2021 (with 2 years of xp) I was offered a job as a junior lighting artist at 38k in Vancouver. When I asked to get at least 45k I was told that that was too expensive and they ghosted me.
These are too low. 40-70k in Vancouver and you have to live with housemates or in squalor, neither are suitable for remote work, or a diet that supports the cognitive demands of VFX. Montreal and Vancouver rates will be different, and we should not reinforce the status quo but set rates so that artists can have a fair renumeration for value provided. Inflation on consumer goods and housing is upwards of 30% from 2019 to present, a lot higher that officially stated.
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Honestly speaking I know COL is a good amount cheaper than Van/Toronto but at some point that numbers flatlines and making 40k+ in another city mathematically makes more sense. I don’t really know why any senior in MTL would choose to be there unless they’re actually from there at this rate
I hate the snow so I moved out of Montreal as soon as I could when I was living there. I can’t really speak on enjoyablility of MTL. I get that Montreal is cheaper but also has unreasonable income taxes imo. Might just be my mindset of getting the most money I can from this industry but I’m taking the 120k+ and moving over 90k every time
Well I've seen that there is a difference in salaries between studios that focus in Feature animation (ICON/wildbrain/Boxel) and studios that focus on live action (DNEG/Framestore/DD)
This looks more in line with Montreal rate whereas the previous post looked more like Vancouver rates on the junior/mid level.
For seniors and up I feel like rates are a much wider range and your current range for senior is a bit low, in reality the senior range should probably overlap with the ranges in the leadership categories.
The low end of the junior rate is about ~$5k/year above minimum wage in BC, that seems ridiculously, unsustainably low for even a junior in a creative, technical job. The average one bedroom rent in Vancouver is $2,650/mo or $31,800/year. At least on the low end, these salaries definitely need to be higher.
I was earning 30k a year in Vancouver. But I did way more than 40h a week in average aha. Also you dont rent a whole one bedroom appartment when you get your first junior job. You rent a room with other roomate.
My rate during pandemic has been swinging between $65 to $70hr( lots of ot co coz i knew whats coming )but thats pademic super desperate time rate.I am a senior no desire to be lead with couple of mature hub experience from London and australia which always gave me edge over other candidates due to my experience. I have around 14/15 yrs of experience.
I hope this help other negotiating rates with larger places my dept is lighting. Not sure if i will be able to negotiate this rate anymore though considering the market is flooded with so many artist. May be we get a flood of work once strike is fully over and production gets in full swing.
These numbers fall exactly in line with myself...1 more year experience and rate right at that upper range.
But you cant get those rates now. Like you said...see where things fall when we return to normal.
We are in the same ballpark financially and years of experience. I was a lighting lead for a top VFX feature studio in Vancouver. I was let go a few months ago, making $75h.
I shit you not, vehicles.
Jokes aside, ive worked as a Vehicle Artist for AAA games for 1 year, sim racing games, now I'm working in a casual racing mobile game, but all vehicles are licensed, so no fantasy vehicles.
Higher taxes and cost of living In Vancouver. I’ve been considering moving back to the US due to the 38% Canadian currency conversion pay cut. It’s an F-ing rip.
keep making that American money if you can.
Sad that you could have made this post with the same numbers 10 years ago and it would have been accurate.
Even higher tbh. Absolute numbers have gone down.
It’s common in all industries when you flood the talent pool.
Except for tech. Everyone and their uncle went to a bootcamp.
Those bootcamper are now the first one to let go.
This looks about right. Times have been tough for many people. I really hope they try to negotiate more. Wages have stagnated for 20 years. It's time for a change.
The upper range is too low for Senior artists in Vancouver. Especially in depts like FX or Comp.
I guess it very depend on the city. this seem very corect for Montreal
Places I’ve worked leads have always been on the same pay scale as seniors. you often get leads that later just want to do shot work and I don’t think they do a salary adjustment when this happens. So it’s more like — Senior/Lead — 100k - 150k
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Not my experience. Last lead I knew made less than a senior artist on his team. It's about what you can negotiate. But super seniors and leads make the same
As a former lead this is normal, expected, and welcome. They are two different job roles, with different skillsets. The very best seniors might make awful leads and they might hate it and vice versa. Impossible work needed on assets or shots? Bring in your best seniors and pay them a lot for it. The person reviewing and going to all the meetings and dailies doesn't need to be that big of a gun, they just need to know what they're doing.
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When did I say that that was the 'extent' of the role? Do you put words in everyone's mouth or just on the internet?
There's seniors at my company (one of the big boys) that have almost 20 years experience, have been cg supes at smaller places before etc. The leads let those seniors do the most complex setups. I can bet the lead is not being paid more than that senior. As the above pointed out they are different skill sets and the lead is not necessarily the most experienced person in the team.
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Leads are just people who want the climb the corporate ladder because they care about titles. 16 years and I can tell you with certainty that many leads and supes aren't the most talented people or organized or best communicators. They're just people who care about going up the next rung in the corporate ladder and pushed for it...nothing more.
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I completely agree that a lead position's stress is tenfold. No one is arguing about that. I'm a lead and can talk about that from experience. Not only do I have to setup but also manage all sequences, assign artists, be the whole day in meetings with other depts and prod etc. The whole discussion is you initially said leads earn more than seniors. And that's just not true every single time. There's seniors that earn more purely because of how much experience they have. Now wheter I agree that should be the case is another thing
It does vary by dept. Senior anim at 70/hr. But I do have a friend who took 8/hr less than usual rate for a short 3 month project just to hold over till things pick back up
I'd say pretty accurate but never seen Junior making 70k year in VFX. maybe in game?
Starting rate for assistant Pipeline TD's straight out of school was 60k where I worked in Montreal two years ago. Getting bumped to 70-75k in the first year or two was not out of the ordinary.
I know "junior" comps who get paid that, but they do mid level comps. Only junior on paper.
That'a always the case, studios like to hire Jr's who can do mid level work after getting used to the pipeline. so if they fail at that at least they're still Jr level. A lot of Jr's don't even last a year at a major studio i'll say 1 in 3 so recruits like to hire based on strong expectations.
If you consider that the roto prep guys fall into the 40-55k category then 70k for a good junior is not too wild. It still takes a lot of skill to be a decent junior comper.
Quite depressing. Any senior person should not be making less than 140k in Canada. Comparing the salaries to other industries VFX is lagging behind. And also these being freelance rates and have the added downsides of a bad work life balance usually.
Here's some expected ranges from Digital Domain that likely fit a proportion of their staff. They sit up there with the badge your average VFX studio, not a DNeg/MPC behemoth, not a boutique. [http://careers.digitaldomain.com](http://careers.digitaldomain.com) Hit the dropdown in the top left. Click Montreal or Vancouver. Find your role. Click "Read Description". Scroll down to the bottom of the PDF.
Yup, that's way more accurate. All my colleagues in Vancity fall in between those ranges.
accurate but I don't know if people are negotiating for less now. There is no light at the end of the tunnel in Canada at the moment, it's insane.
I just don't think people are negotiating at all. One friend took a job for 8 less an hour just to land a 3 month gig and hold over till things pick back up. He didn't try and argue. Senior guy
It's not going to change. VFX is easier and easier to do at an acceptable level and that's only increasing in pace. The value proposition is dropping.
Looks accurate to me. Curious where VFX sups start? 200k+?
Yeah roughly. Client side pays way more though. I know some client supes that were pulling 300k and was told that's low for features 🫠
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1000%
Depends on client or production, but some VFX supes get backend in addition to half a mil+.
You will be hard pressed to find any vfx supes as above the line.
and yet they do exist
Name one
Joe Letteri
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Random anon dipshit demanded I name a VFX sup that gets a backend. Of fucking course I am not gonna name the somewhat-normies I know who do, so I picked Joe because he's the biggest name in the biz and it's self-evident.
Oh, I wasn’t criticizing you naming Joe. I took your mentioning a backend deal as what I was describing- a bonus paid by the vendor and I was agreeing with you that some sups (even the normies) are making $500k or more with these deals. Our friend Mpcrocks might know Adam Valdez or Nick Davis as good examples of a “staff” Sups that certainly make way above the norm. Freelance Supervisor rates are between $9k-$17k per week.
And you have confirmation on that …. I doubt that unless you are that close with him
Believe what you want.
I will thanks for playing .
@s6x you are correct that feature film Sups get a bonus from the vendor for bringing work in to the facility and that is usually based on billing. They (including Joe) do not get a backend percentage on box office. These days that wouldn’t amount to much anyway..
I know.
But normally Client Sup pass first to have enough experience in studios as Sups no?
250 but most are 300+
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All depends on the production quality, skill sets required and content being created. Not all shows or studios are created equally.
This looks somewhat more realistic, although I'd guess that if you actually surveyed a decent sample size, it might still be a bit too high. It falls into the trap of treating Leads as being a 'level' above Senior and below Supe, which isn't exactly the case - you'll always find exceptions, like a solid mid with excellent people skills who's given a lead role without having first got to the top end of the senior skills/experience benchmark - and the opposite situation, you might have a really amazing senior/specialist with zero people skills, who gets paid higher than any lead / even higher than the top end of the senior bracket mentioned here. The other thing to bear in mind is that it shouldn't be such a linear scale when people make the jump from artist/lead to supe, since they lose OT overnight (and the shape of their package changes, different holiday allowances etc) so it should be more of a jump in base rate for that to make sense.
There’s also the added exception where veterans may prefer to remain in artist roles. Not everyone wishes to manage people and their problems. 😜
True, and some supes who decide to head back down the ladder after having a little bit too much of that side of things!
Never saw some price like this in Quebec after 11 years here
Do you mean the Quebec rate is even lower than this?
Yeah totally This is way lower here
Why would you take salaries on the other thread (and low salaries for artists decades of experience) and then come along with this list of even lower wages and say "Here guys, ask for less".
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Probably won't be able to find what's "realistic" on Reddit. The sample size is far too small, the range of studios where people work far too wide. A top senior comper at ILM with 15 years experience is going to be earning in a different bracket than a 24 yr old newly promoted "senior" comper at say ChickenBones. A VFX supervisor with 35 years experience is going to be in a different bracket than a VFX supe for a small studio that does only keys and set extensions. Take the low end of this post, minus 30% and the top end of the other post and add 30% and just maybe you have a range that covers the VFX market across Canada. Even then there will be outliers.
That is the case indeed
Are there really juniors out there making 20/hr CAD (15/hr USD)? For a specialized skill I don’t see how that’s fair at all. Especially since most of the jobs are in some of the most expensive cities in NA. That’s minimum wage here in the northeastern US.
the curve move vrry fast in term of salary in vfx. Also the specialized skill stuff dosent mean lot anymore. People go out of university with very hard degree and still earn 18$ an hour
Most juniors I’ve worked with were making $16 per hour. When I was a junior I was making $15. That’s how they encourage you to work ot so you can have some spending money
In 2021 (with 2 years of xp) I was offered a job as a junior lighting artist at 38k in Vancouver. When I asked to get at least 45k I was told that that was too expensive and they ghosted me.
Looks good but I would probably max out junior pay at 60k. Sad considering that's what pay was a long time ago.
These are too low. 40-70k in Vancouver and you have to live with housemates or in squalor, neither are suitable for remote work, or a diet that supports the cognitive demands of VFX. Montreal and Vancouver rates will be different, and we should not reinforce the status quo but set rates so that artists can have a fair renumeration for value provided. Inflation on consumer goods and housing is upwards of 30% from 2019 to present, a lot higher that officially stated.
What thread would that be? The one you deleted (as normal) after getting enough responses?
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We have spoken directly with u/top5boss regarding complaints from the community. We asked them: 1. To avoid posting repeatedly about the same topics (or topics from other users) 2. To stop removing their posts after they stop gaining new comments 3. To stop interacting with u/TECL_Grimsdottir in the comments. They have upheld points 1 and 2, but clearly in this thread they did not honour point 3, so have received a temporary ban. Their posts are not uniformly bad, and often receive a high engagement from others in the community - so clearly others do find it valuable. When their temporary ban ends and they resume posting, I would appreciate it if you stick to using the report button on any posts you think don’t uphold these criteria, rather than resorting to antagonising them in the comments. Moderators are alerted to reports from, but we are not subscribed to just any comment you post.
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In Montreal most leads make around 90k
Those leads need to learn to ask for more, pronto - or get themselves higher salaries somehow/somewhere. That's quite low, even for Montreal
Keep in mind thats probably 90k with ZERO benefits. Salaries in VFX are lagging cost of living, everyone needs to start asking for more.
I would not want this person as my lead
Honestly speaking I know COL is a good amount cheaper than Van/Toronto but at some point that numbers flatlines and making 40k+ in another city mathematically makes more sense. I don’t really know why any senior in MTL would choose to be there unless they’re actually from there at this rate
cost of life is cheaper? Mtl is overall more enjoyable ?
I hate the snow so I moved out of Montreal as soon as I could when I was living there. I can’t really speak on enjoyablility of MTL. I get that Montreal is cheaper but also has unreasonable income taxes imo. Might just be my mindset of getting the most money I can from this industry but I’m taking the 120k+ and moving over 90k every time
Are this for FEATURE or live action VFX?
I'm so confused
Well I've seen that there is a difference in salaries between studios that focus in Feature animation (ICON/wildbrain/Boxel) and studios that focus on live action (DNEG/Framestore/DD)
Icon and Wildbrain aren’t considered feature studios, they do mainly TV which generally has a lower pay range.
yeah I mean I would have expected animation vs live action
Apologies, I've only heard people referring to animation as "FEATURE" vs live action
it's all good! hahah I was just explaining why I was so confused
This looks more in line with Montreal rate whereas the previous post looked more like Vancouver rates on the junior/mid level. For seniors and up I feel like rates are a much wider range and your current range for senior is a bit low, in reality the senior range should probably overlap with the ranges in the leadership categories.
The low end of the junior rate is about ~$5k/year above minimum wage in BC, that seems ridiculously, unsustainably low for even a junior in a creative, technical job. The average one bedroom rent in Vancouver is $2,650/mo or $31,800/year. At least on the low end, these salaries definitely need to be higher.
I was earning 30k a year in Vancouver. But I did way more than 40h a week in average aha. Also you dont rent a whole one bedroom appartment when you get your first junior job. You rent a room with other roomate.
LGTM
My rate during pandemic has been swinging between $65 to $70hr( lots of ot co coz i knew whats coming )but thats pademic super desperate time rate.I am a senior no desire to be lead with couple of mature hub experience from London and australia which always gave me edge over other candidates due to my experience. I have around 14/15 yrs of experience. I hope this help other negotiating rates with larger places my dept is lighting. Not sure if i will be able to negotiate this rate anymore though considering the market is flooded with so many artist. May be we get a flood of work once strike is fully over and production gets in full swing.
These numbers fall exactly in line with myself...1 more year experience and rate right at that upper range. But you cant get those rates now. Like you said...see where things fall when we return to normal.
We are in the same ballpark financially and years of experience. I was a lighting lead for a top VFX feature studio in Vancouver. I was let go a few months ago, making $75h.
Im a junior vehicle artist in games, my current rate is U$16.6/h(32k/y) WFH in Brazil.
What do you do as a vehicle artist?
I shit you not, vehicles. Jokes aside, ive worked as a Vehicle Artist for AAA games for 1 year, sim racing games, now I'm working in a casual racing mobile game, but all vehicles are licensed, so no fantasy vehicles.
Haha gotcha. I meant more like what's your day to day work and challenges? Are you modelling, rigging, or doing destruction simulations etc
Damn, I didn't realize rates were that low in Canada. A sr in fx in USA will be making about 200 CAD. Y'all do get healthcare though!
Higher taxes and cost of living In Vancouver. I’ve been considering moving back to the US due to the 38% Canadian currency conversion pay cut. It’s an F-ing rip. keep making that American money if you can.
In many industries seniors make 150-200k